Drone Maintenance & Test Engineer – Field-Ready Ops

Zipline; Half Moon Bay (CA); On-site; USD 48,000 - 58,000; Full time

Job summary

Zipline in Half Moon Bay, California is seeking a Maintenance Operations Engineering Technician to keep prototype flight vehicles, ground infrastructure, and test equipment safe, configured, and ready for engineering development and field operations.

You will own hands-on maintenance, replace components, run endurance campaigns, and help ensure accurate configuration records and data capture for reliability improvements and vehicle readiness decisions.

Qualifications

• Experience operating common machine-shop equipment and building mechanical assemblies, fixtures, jigs, or test hardware.
• Hands-on experience with electrical and electronic assemblies across different power levels and component sizes.
• Experience setting up, instrumenting, executing, and documenting hardware or hardware/software tests alongside engineers.
• Ability to independently troubleshoot test issues to a first-order diagnosis and communicate clear evidence for engineering follow-up.
• Ability to interpret electrical specifications, mechanical drawings, test procedures, diagrams, and incomplete work instructions.
• Discipline in organizing test data, maintaining configuration records, and communicating findings clearly in writing and verbally.
• Ability to work rotating shifts, including nights and weekends, on site in Half Moon Bay, California.
• Ability to travel approximately 20% of the time, including trips of up to two weeks, to support testing operations across the United States.
• Eligible to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future.

Responsibilities

• Maintain prototype aircraft, ground infrastructure, and test equipment to keep approved test campaigns executable and vehicles available for engineering work.
• Replace vehicle components, perform checkouts, and maintain complete maintenance documentation and configuration records.
• Execute semi-automated vehicle checkouts, reliability campaigns, and endurance tests using documented procedures and repeatable setups.
• Prepare test articles, equipment, instrumentation, and data-acquisition systems so test specifications can be executed as written.
• Verify completed maintenance and test setups meet documented configuration, safety-check, instrumentation, and data-capture requirements before test execution.
• Independently isolate and document first-order test-system or test-article faults; surface deviations and elevate root-cause resolution to engineers.
• Produce test reports that connect observations and data to reliability improvements, design iterations, and vehicle-readiness decisions.
• Travel to support testing, maintenance, and operational needs at other Zipline locations across the United States.

Job description

Zipline in Half Moon Bay, California is seeking a Maintenance Operations Engineering Technician to keep prototype flight vehicles, ground infrastructure, and test equipment safe, configured, and ready for engineering development and field operations.

You will own hands-on maintenance, replace components, run endurance campaigns, and help ensure accurate configuration records and data capture for reliability improvements and vehicle readiness decisions.